Expansion/Quota Questions
 

So I know that in order for a campus to get a new (NPC) sorority, the campus Panhellenic or Greek Life office has to declare that they're open for expansion and all that. But, if a university has only one NPC sorority, then would they even have an NPC? And if that were the case, who would have the authority to "open up" the campus for expansion? The school I'm thinking of does not to my knowledge have a Greek Life office but there is an office of Student Activities.

Also, on a kind of similar but mostly unrelated note, how does quota work on a campus with only one sorority? Is there even such a thing?

on campuses (campi?) with no NPCs or 1 NPC (ie no collegiate panhellenic has been formed) the appropriate authority is the University ... probably someone in the Dean of Students office or Student Activities office.

Once the 2nd NPC group is installed, its the responsibility of the 1st NPC group to organize the collegiate panhellenic which then becomes the appropriate authority.

re: quota/total with only 1 NPC group ... no such thing ... the chapter would/could take as many new members as they wanted.

i can give you some answers as the advisor to the 2nd sorority to colonize on the fl. gulf coast u. campus, as best i understand how it worked.

there was a local sorority at fgcu-after a few years at fgcu they were encouraged by the administration to petition to become a colony of an npc sorority. npc was notified and interested sororities sent infomation packets. now this part i am fuzzy on: either the local decided on their own, or with the help of the administration that they would seek to affiliate with delta delta delta. after their successful installation as a new tri delta chapter, a few more years went by and the administration decided that it was time to add a 2nd sorority(there was one ifc fraternity on campus). npc was notified and interested sororities submitted information packets-three sororities were invited to visit and give presentations-zeta tau alpha was chosen to colonize that january.the tri deltas and the administration decided who would colonize. the zta colony was installed as the kappa tau chapter of zta in april .upon their installation, a panhellenic council was established. the two chapters worked together to write the bylaws and recruitment rules. this fall chi omega will colonize at fgcu.

so in this case, panhellenic council did not exist until the 2nd sorority was installed. there was a greek life office(i use that term loosely) that also headed up judicial affairs and was under the student affairs vp. i understand that a new greek life officer has been hired, who is an actual greek(the other two gl officers were not) and their sole responsibility will be greek life. i hope that is true. i believe that the administration decided to seek a 2nd sorority.

i think that tri delta decided how many new members to pledge. i do know that they pledged 12 new members during their formal recruitment, which was held early in january of the year zta colonized. i believe that 12 or 14 girls participated in formal recruitment.when zta participated in formal recruitment the following january, quota was determined by counting the number of pnms who attended pref. parties divided by 2. that is how it has been done since.

campi with one chapter
 

The chapter usually does have a "total" set by their national office that they need to achieve, just so the chapter stays viable. Obviously if they go over this (by a little or a lot) the national isn't going to complain.

So if one of the prerequisites for a campus's Student Activities office (or NPC if it exists) to decide to open for expansion is generally (as I've read on a few threads here) that the existing chapter(s) be consistently at or above quota, but there is only one chapter present and therefore no official "quota" per se but only a suggested guideline, what other factors may be considered in convincing or encouraging a campus to open for expansion? It seems pretty obvious that if a group is constantly scrounging around for new members and barely able to fill all of the officer positions within the org, then of course the interest just isn't present on the campus. But if numbers and participation are high or at least sufficient, what other aspects of the student environment could persuade a campus to want to expand?

Exactly.

I guess I'll chime in as well since my collegiate chapter is the only NPC presence on campus.

First, 33girl was right when she mentioned the "total" standard set forth by HQ. Obviously we don't have a quota to follow, but each year IHQ suggests that we get x number of women.

A few years back when I was still working on campus, I saw fliers for an AST interest group forming. I tried to nose around to find out who was in charge -- if she was an AST alumna or a transfer who wanted to start a collegiate chapter. I was working at Student Activities at that time and wanted to offer my assistance, but my calls went unreturned. I don't think that group ever got off the ground because AGD's still the only NPC there.

I've said time and again that a collegiate chapter won't survive at UHM if there's no strong alumnae presence and backing, and I know a lot of sororities don't want to colonize because it's just too risky. If there's a group of XYZ alumnae who want to colonize a chapter, they too can approach the Student Activities and Programs office and go from there. They'll just need a campus representative to sponsor them. Unfortunately, judging from my experience and how I know who still works there...they don't know jack about the NPC and expansion policies. They wouldn't know if there was a need even if it slapped them in the face.

Personally, I would love to see a second NPC on campus. (We already have 3 local sororities). I get jealous when I see the fraternities grow (we've had TKE, Beta Theta Pi, SigEp, and Kappa Sigma in the last 10 years) and it'd be great if the sororities could be the same way.

Of course, this is true about so many campi!

The problem with your state is the far reaching of HQ's! The costs are exteemly high so it is left up to a very few visits, or Alums to keep things in working order instead of visits by IHQ reps.


I admire the NIC GLOs that came there and are there and as always, I want to see expansions!

Some other factors that might let the Student Activities office know it's time for another NPC:

--the existing sorority consistenly has larger and larger pledge classes.
--the undergraduate population of the college is growing each year.
--growth of the college in other areas: is it transitioning from a local, commuter college to a regional, residential school by building student housing, attracting students from other areas of the state? I've seen many of the state colleges in GA do this in recent years.

Interestingly enough, the school I'm thinking of exactly fits the last criterion you mentioned. I'm not sure about pledge class size and undergrad population but I'd imagine they're on the rise (at least total pop) due to the fact that the school has recently added student housing and is expanding the campus itself as well. Thanks for bringing that up--it's something I hadn't thought of yet!

I think I know what school you're referring to!:)

But some Ga state schools that have transitioned from commuter schools to more regional, residential schools in recent years are Armstrong Atlantic and Kennesaw State. Both are adding (or have recently) student housing. Kennesaw is adding a colony of Gamma Phi this fall and Armstrong Atlantic has a fairly new (less than 10 yrs old) Greek system. Columbus State also has new student housing and an AOPi colony (local wanted to affiliate).